RESEARCH FOCUS

My group investigates health effects of modern, man-made electromagnetic fields as well as the functional impairment electrohypersensitivity. I introduced the clinical term “screen dermatitis” to explain the cutaneous damages that developed in the late 1970’s when office workers, first mostly women, began to be placed in front of computer monitors. I called for action along lines of occupational medicine, biophysics and biochemistry, as well as neuroscience and experimental dermatology. The working hypothesis early became that persons with the impairment electrohypersensitivity react in a cellularly correct way to the electromagnetic radiation, maybe in concert with chemical emissions such as plastic components, flame retardants, etc., in a highly specific way and with a completely correct avoidance reaction — just as you would do if you had been exposed to e.g. sun rays, X-rays, radioactivity or chemical odours.

Nowadays, electrohypersensitivity (EHS) is in Sweden an officially fully recognized functional impairment (i.e., it is not regarded as a disease). Survey studies show that somewhere between 230,000-290,000 Swedish men and women — out of a population of 9,000,000 — report a variety of symtoms when being in contact with electromagnetic field sources. To this, one should also add all the current issues regarding the bigger picture: the health effects of electromagnetic fields on the general population.

Hallberg Ö, Johansson O, “Apparent decreases in Swedish public health indicators after 1997 — Are they due to improved diagnostics or to environmental factors?”, Pathophysiology 2009; 16: 43-46.

Johansson O, “Disturbance of the immune system by electromagnetic fields — A potentially underlying cause for cellular damage and tissue repair reduction which could lead to disease and impairment”, Pathophysiology 2009; 16: 157-177.

Johansson O, “Aspects of studies on the functional impairment electrohypersensi-tivity”, In: Proceedings of Electromagnetic Phenomena and Health – A Continuing Controversy? (ed. IA Jamieson & P Holdstock). A one day international conference organised by the Electrostatics Group of the Institute of Physics and held at the Institute of Physics, London, UK, on September 10, 2008. IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, IoP Publishing, Bristol/Philadelphia, 2010, Volume 10, pp 1-7.

Joint Task Force of the EFNS and the PNS, “European Federation of Neurological Societies/Peripheral Nerve Society Guideline on the use of skin biopsy in the diagnosis of small fiber neuropathy. Report of a joint task force of the European Federation of Neurological Societies and Peripheral Nerve Society”, J Peripher Nerv Syst 2010; 15: 79-92.